TWO horses in summer condition, big all
over, were coming in from early morning exercise, and though they
had only had a short two hours of slow walking, both were sweating,
and the ridden one was slightly lathered on the neck and under the
saddle.

It was rather more than midway between the hunting and the shooting
seasons; that period dull and dead to the average hunting man, who,
if he has no other hobby to ride, finds he is then a weariness to
himself and a positive nuisance to his friends. But to the man who
delights in country sights and sounds—and what true sportsman does
not?—no time of the year in the country is dull or lifeless, and all
seasons, far from being flat or profitless, are big with interest,
and the days are often all too short for what they bring.

I had strolled stablewards before breakfast, as was my wont on most
mornings at this time, for two new purchases had recently been made,
and some of the old horses had just been taken up and were being put
into work. Of the two come in, the led one was handed over to a
strapper with the curt command, issued like a sergeant-instructor’s
order, by Batters, head stableman, “Pit this yin inna the lowse
box," while he himself tied the other one up to a ring in a bare
stall. I watched him run the stirrup irons up to the top of the
leathers, loosen the girths to the first hole, raise the saddle up
several times before settling it on the mare’s back, take off his
coat, and start to scrape her and wipe her over with a wisp of rough
straw.

With this I was fain to be satisfied, and felt relieved, for I had
bought the mare, an Irish five-year-old, without his opinion and
advice, and dreaded the consequences of his disapproval.

After a pause, Batters added, “There’s a telegraph on the road up
for ye, sir,” by which I understood that a telegraph message was in
process of conveyance by the usual medium, the village postmistress,
a lady of over thirty seasons’ running, and broken to ride her
bicycle barely twelve months ago.

“Did you not take the message from her?”

“A did note, becuz the mere was a wee feered for the machine, an' A
couldna ha’e taen’t binna oo had baith gotten doon, an’ the twa
whulps hed follit mi i’ the cuipples an’ they micht ha’e rin amang
her legs, an’ mair as that, the wumman said there wuz a answer
wantit till the telegraph.”

Whereupon I returned to the house in search of the wumman and the
“telegraph,” whom I presently found. From a sort of reverie I was
roused by the voice of Joanna saying, “The tele-girl is waiting to
take the reply, and the puppies have already eaten the envelope and
are attacking her bicycle. Is there any reply?”

Joanna knew there was, for, as she afterwards explained, she saw me
extract the prepaid form from its cover, and she wondered what
caused the wide grin to spread over my countenance; but she wished
to be enlightened and consulted in the matter.

“Yes, there is a reply—an answer obvious—a question, in fact, as
follows: ‘Would I if offered accept a first-class ticket to
Elysium?’”

We watched the so-called tele-girl wending her way down the drive on
her solid-tyred bike, crawling across the bridge as if on a tortoise
race, and disappearing round the bend of the road; and we wondered
if the message, carefully read out and spelled over to her, had
created any emotion other than that of pity in her stolid breast.

Then Joanna said, “Well?”

I spread the crumpled pink paper out on my knee. “No, 'Playmate'
down, 'Pastime,’ you don’t get this document to eat.” It read:
“Would you if offered take on the Forest fox-hounds as huntsman and
master. Reply,” and this over the name Gideon Dodd, one of the
grandest old sportsmen in the whole Borderland. Again and again did
I gaze at the electrifying message, and each time it brought up new
sensations of delight in the attempt to realise what it meant.
Fox-hounds, Huntsman, Master, Forest; each word costing one
halfpenny to transmit, yet worth untold gold to me. I set out for a
long stroll on the hillside to try and picture something of what it
conveyed. It meant the acquiring one of the most sporting and useful
little packs of fox-hounds in Britain: sporting, because it was
hunted entirely without professional assistance, the Master carrying
the horn and being assisted by two non-professional whips; and
useful, because although only established some six years previously,
it was already doing good work and killing foxes, and improving the
sport obtained by neighbouring packs. It meant the serious business
of providing and showing sport in a thoroughly sporting district;
living in a community of sports men and women who had all the fire
and energy of the old mosstroopers, and who, from childhood, were at
home in the saddle; fond of a good horse and a good hound, and eager
to enjoy to the full the pleasure of a good chase. It meant the
interesting effort of breeding hounds, and the engrossing anxiety of
bringing them forward; the delight of taking hounds of one’s own
breeding into the field; the satisfaction of seeing them take to
hunting naturally as to the manner born; and the fascinating
occupation of hunting hounds and studying hound-work.

It entailed a heap of time, labour, forethought, and craft, and the
assuming all the heavy responsibility and the multifarious duties
connected with the office of Mastership. Well might a more qualified
person pause and hesitate; but in one thing I was not deficient, and
that was keenness; and I knew I should get every support from a
ready and willing staff, and from an enthusiastic field of
followers. In old Batters—not that he was old in years, but in
wisdom and experience—I had a tower of strength. A better stableman
never existed. Punctual as the sun, and as early a riser, his
knowledge of the constitution and temperament of his horses was very
complete. For years he had turned out a small stud to do, and do
well, the work of twice its number. Plenty of exercise, good
strapping and dressing, very regular and frequent feeding and not
too much corn at a time, was his practice. He hated “Vets," and
except for surgical operations resented their being called in as a
reflection on his own knowledge; and when this was proposed he used
to mutter: “If oo sterve the horse an' pit a clean divot in his
manger for him ti worry at, he’ll turn better far quicker wantin’
the Veet.” A tyrant, but a just one, over the many stable lads that
had passed through his hands, he had turned out some first-rate men
whose recommendation was, they had been "an ’ear wi' auld Batters.”
He never quite forgave his master for inadvertently entering him in
some official return as “Coachman.” “A micht hae been putten doon
what A am shairly—Stud-gruim.” This description he would fairly earn
now, for he was not slow in acquainting me with the stipulation that
“there wad need ti be nae drievin’ on huntin’ days, an’ that Johnny,
his son, wad need ti be putten inta leevery, for he was lairnin’ him
ti drieve.” The fact that a move would be made back into his native
district, where he was a recognised authority and indeed looked on
as a sort of oracle, would, I knew, reconcile him to any extra work
and irregular hours which his new duties might bring.

With the hounds went a Volunteer First Whip, Tom Telfer; and no hunt
possessed a more active or harder working one, a quicker man in the
field, or more determined across a rough difficult country. His
incursions to the larger neighbouring hunts were frequent and always
brought fun of some kind, for he had a posse of followers who
frequently got into difficulties in their attempts to follow him.

For the position of Second Whip I knew there would be some
competition. In fact, there was some danger of the supply exceeding
the demand. The anxiety of the field to assist during the progress
of a fox chase was always superabundant, and on one occasion so
great had been this eagerness that my predecessor is said to have
declared that having run a dead-beat fox into a small plantation
clear of rabbit-holes and all other refuges, he was the only man who
was not hunting the hounds. So it was fixed that Jack Purdie, the
head stable lad under Batters, should be appointed Second Whip and
Second Horseman combined.

Over and over again that day did I enact in anticipation the joy of
waving hounds into cover, and after a long chase, of course at a
terrific pace over a big country, I pictured myself standing in the
middle of the baying pack and throwing the dead body of a stift fox
to hounds. Coming in an hour later for lunch, I was asked by the
lady who presides at the end of my table what I had been doing, and
I replied, “Why, huntin’ hounds, of course.” To which she retorted,
“If you are going to drop your 'g’s’ about like that I shan’t play."

Later on in the day, Billy Kerr, a young relative, arrived
breathless with excitement, and gasped out: “Is it true? For if it
is, by the powers, I’ll whip to you if you have only a three-legged
horse to give me.”

“Come away down to the stables, and I’ll show you a four-legged
one.”

When the linen sheet was stripped from the Irish mare in obedience
to Batters’ command, “Peel that mere,” and after her legs had been
felt, and her hocks examined, the Oracle remarked, “She wadna mak’ a
bad wheep’s horse, Maister Willyum.”

As there had been no opportunity for an interchange of news between
the two, it left it to be surmised that the tele-girl had revealed
to Batters the momentous message of the morning.

“Let’s have a look through what you’ve got here before I go,” said
Billy.

So the horses were inspected in turn with a new interest and a new
importance, and much discussion took place as to whether this one or
that one was suitable—fast enough, stout enough, and clever enough
for a huntsman’s horse.

“What have you just now?” asked Billy.

“At the moment there are five here and two at grass, seven hunters
all told; all good of their kind, and all to be depended upon; but
two of them are shared with the family.”

“Which are these?”

“Well, there's 'Pepperbox' whom you know—the 'Powney' as Batters
calls her, though she is 15.1½.”

“She's fresh as ever, and will come up from the grass firm and fat,
and frisking like a filly."

“Yes," replied Bill, “she gives a very good imitation of Australian
buck-jumping when the saddle is first laid on her, and a lot of fun
to the man who crosses it. I remember our friend here had a
convenient turn of lumbago last year, and gave me the privilege of
'first ride,'" he went on, seeing Batters leave the stable for a
moment; “but I did not see much stiffness about him as he ran to
catch her after she had disposed of me."

“The other is this one, one of that rare sort, anybody's horse, a
very pleasant ride, an absolutely safe conveyance, a perfect fencer,
and never sick or sorry; but, as Batters says, 'sair afflickit wi'
want o’ speed.'"

“This old arm-chair rather spoils the look of these three blood-like
chasers,” said Billy to Batters, who had come back.

“Mebbe she diz that, Captain Willyum, but she’s yin o’ the kind ye
whiles read aboot but dinna aften see, an’ she can mak’ fules o’
some o' the faster kind; an' what's mair," with a very steady and
direct glance at his master, “she's a yuisfu’ kind for a snawy day."

Thereupon I made a mental note that whether I wished it or not, “
Old Safety" would have to remain in the Hunt stable.

“Ye’ll never think o' pairtin’ wi’ the auld horse, sir,” continued
Batters, after Bill had run his hand over old “Royal’s” tendons and
pinched his suspensory ligament, and had observed, “He stands over a
bit more than I thought, and that flat foot doesn’t improve, and he
is a bit impetuous in a cramped country, is he not?”

“Put him away! Rather not, Bill. There’s some three or four years’
genuine work in him yet, and he and I will never part.”

“The 'Pearl’ here is another of the same, but faster, and has the
advantage of youth, though she’s not so careful where she puts her
feet as I should like.”

“What’s this, Master?” as we came to a little thick dark-brown mare,
with well-turned quarters, muscular thighs, and good straight hocks.

“That’s the ‘Omega’ mare, Bill, only rising five years old, active
and clever as a kitten, but has a little to learn yet, and has
rather too much action for a hunter.”

“Shae’ll never dae ti keep,” muttered Batters, as he unbuckled the
roller; “she can lift her legs high eneuch, but she sets them doon
in the verra same bit again.”

Billy could find no fault with the mare’s shapes when she was
stripped; but the evident anxiety of Batters to cover her up again
left little time for a thorough examination, and when the rug and
roller were being adjusted I whispered to my companion the
explanation that the Oracle could not ride her, and that she was not
a favourite with him.

“Let’s have one more look at the Irish mare,’ said Billy. So we had
her run out, and picked her to pieces.

“How's she bred? I
suppose you got a pedigree with her?”

“Yes, a real Irish pedigree; by ‘Royal Meath’ from 'Alanna' and
going back as long as your arm, and a reputation even longer.”

“Yes; what was it the dealer said about her?” “Well, after I had
bought the mare, and he had pocketed his cheque, I said, 'Now,
Maloney, the mare is mine and not returnable; is there anything
about her that I should know? Has she any trick in or out of the
stable?’ 'Thrick is it?' he replied, gulping down a glass of brown
sherry which he had selected to wet the bargain. 'In the sthable she
has a thrick av licking out her manger clane, an’ out av the sthable
she has a thrick av takin’ ye to the front an’ keepin’ ye there.'
Then warming up, he went on, 'Whei, the lasht toime I rode her
misilf wid the fox-hounds, we had a twilve-moile point, an’ she
finished wan iv twilve others in a field av siventy. On our way home
we met the sthag-hounds jist startin’, so as she was quite fresh, I
tuk her on. We ran a twinty moile point this toime—only foive of us
finished out av a field av a hundred' and, raising his voice to a
high scream, 'an’ wan av thim foive was your mare.’”

When Bill had done laughing, he said, “Well, I must mount my
hireling and tak’ the road.”

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